GoDaddy Online Bookkeeping Introduction

Formerly known as Outright, GoDaddy Online Bookkeeping is designed to simplify accounting and even tax time for small businesses. It was originally designed by employees that left Intuit and wanted to create a program that catered to self-employed individuals. They offer numerous online features, tax categories for self-employed and a clean, well-designed interface for those that do not want to overcomplicate their finances.

A cloud-based accounting program specifically designed for small business and self-employed individuals.

Scoring and Rating

Accounting and Business Tasks: (Rating: 9/10)

GoDaddy Online Bookkeeping offers basic accounting for small businesses, but not necessarily the more advanced accounting larger companies need. They do sync with banks for faster transaction input, track income/expenses, store everything online securely and even categorize transactions based on what you would need for a Schedule C.

There’s no inventory or vendor management and bill pay options with GoDaddy Online Bookkeeping, but that is because they are more designed for self-employed individuals and contractors.

Invoicing: (Rating: 9/10)

GoDaddy Online Bookkeeping boasts about their simplified invoicing. They offer professional invoices and you can choose from several premade templates and then customize them to suit your business branding. You can also schedule automated “thank you” emails when payments are received.

Invoicing is a little easier with GoDaddy, but nothing other companies don’t offer as well. They let you email invoices directly from their software and you can copy and paste from Excel and Word. You can also track time on a time sheet and then convert it into an invoice automatically.

Invoices are then tracked by status on the site and you can send automatic late payment reminders. Also, you can accept payments through your GoDaddy account via PayPal and Stripe.

Multiple tax rates are accepted, but not currencies. They don’t offer automatic billing or recurring billing either. Estimates are not available.

Management: (Rating: 5/10)

GoDaddy Online Bookkeeping is not really for management; instead, it is more for self-employed individuals. That being said, they do have a handful of management features, such as tracking time for clients. This isn’t a true time tracker though; instead, you input into a timesheet. If you need to actually track the time, you’ll need a third party app.

There are no purchase orders, employee options, contact management or even vendor and inventory management options.
You can, however, integrate your GoDaddy Online account with POS systems and other online third-party retailers like Etsy.

Ease of Use: (Rating: 10/10)

GoDaddy Online Bookkeeping is fairly user-friendly; we’ll give them that. The dashboard is easy to understand, the overall software is rather straightforward and if you aren’t sure, they have plenty of resources to help you find what you need.

Their integrations run smoothly and even a person with limited knowledge about online accounting could figure it out. That being said, the program overall is very basic; therefore, if it were too difficult it wouldn’t have much purpose.

Setup is quick and easy with this program, because really you just have to input a few things before you can get started.

Access: (Rating: 10/10)

You only have one user account and one access point with GoDaddy Online Bookkeeping. Instead of giving them direct access, you are just sharing a file with them.

They do have a mobile app, though it could use some improvements – and it’s not available for Windows phones (though very few are). Everything is accessible online since it is a cloud-based program and backups are done in real-time.

Taxes: (Rating: 8/10)

GoDaddy Online Bookkeeping does deliver on their promise to simplify taxes for small businesses. There’s no tax filing skills needed, because they automatically classify expenses into Schedule C categories and print a Schedule C worksheet so that you just take it and input it into your program or manual sheet come tax time. They also help calculate estimated quarterly tax payments – something only a handful of programs do. These are real-time estimates too that update based on income you add to the system.

You cannot actually file your taxes with GoDaddy Online Bookkeeping – and we hope they add that option in the future. But, they do have the ability to automatically retrieve and input 1099-Ks and their income from companies like PayPal, Amazon and Etsy – a unique feature.

Because there’s no employee management, you cannot file payroll taxes. You can invite an accountant to your Outright account, but this doesn’t always work – so most users find they have to download their accountant file and email it over.

Pricing: (Rating: 10/10)

There is no free trial.

GoDaddy Online Bookkeeping is $9 per month. For the price and what they offer, this is definitely competitive and fair. They accept payments via Stripe and PayPal, but you would pay the per transaction fee to those third parties instead of GoDaddy.

Customer Service: (Rating: 9/10)

Tech support for GoDaddy Online Bookkeeping is shared with other GoDaddy products, but you have access to tech support via email by submitting a ticket, Facebook and Twitter, and you can always access their knowledgebase to see if they have answers to your questions. There’s no live chat – something we hope they add in the future.

GoDaddy is an accredited business and has been since 2000. They are also rated A+ with the BBB.

Platforms Supported

Mobile

Help and Support

What Type of Business Could Use This Software?

GoDaddy Online Bookkeeping is more suitable for freelancers and contractors. They lack the more complex features a small business would need or even a company with employees and inventory. With their Schedule C reporting and estimated quarterly tax payments, however, they are perfect for contractors that want to simplify their finances and tax time and even improve how fast they receive payments.

What We Like About GoDaddy Online Bookkeeping

Schedule C: It is hard to find companies that brag about catering to freelancers and actually deliver, but this one does. They provide automatic categorizations of expenses into Schedule C-approved categories and you can even print a Schedule C at tax time for faster inputs. The worksheet prints and has the line numbers as well, so that you know exactly what information to put where in your tax program.

Estimated Quarterly Tax Payments: This is a big thing, especially for freelancers and independent contractors that have so few accounting options out there. Freelancers can see how much they owe and have up-to-date estimates so that they stay on top of their payments.

1099-K: This is very unique. For those that sell online, 1099-Ks can automatically be downloaded and added to GoDaddy from Amazon, Etsy and PayPal. Most software programs don’t have this feature and don’t even address the issue of the 1099-K at tax time.

What We Don't Like About GoDaddy Online Bookkeeping

No Free Trial: There used to be a free version of GoDaddy Online Bookkeeping, but they no longer offer it. They also don’t have a free trial. While it’s only $9.99 per month, there are plenty of programs out there that still let you try it for free before committing. This is definitely something we hope they will add later on so that more small businesses and freelancers can try it without feeling as though they have to waste $10 first.

No Management Tools: The program is simplified and ideal for self-employed individuals, but it doesn’t have some of the management tools that some may need, such as inventory. There are freelancers and individuals out there that sell online and need to track their inventory for taxes and just better business.

No Estimates: You can invoice with GoDaddy, but you cannot create estimates. Most people that use these types of freelancer-friendly programs will need to send estimates to clients for projects, so this is a feature they should consider adding.

Review Summary

8.8Total Score

Online accounting for small businesses.

GoDaddy Online Bookkeeping, formerly known as Outright.com, offers a variety of accounting options for small businesses and independent contractors. While not designed for larger companies, they offer plenty of features a smaller business or startup would need.

Shailynn is a word slinger, chef, Pinterest addict and adult coloring book collector. As our Operations Manager and Senior Researcher/Editor, you will find Shailynn busy finding new companies and topics to research, but also handling the crazy day-to-day on the backend – and by crazy…we mean all of us.
She attended the International Culinary Institute, where she studied pastry arts and she worked as an executive pastry chef before hanging up her chef’s hat and decided to work from home as a writer. She is a fanatic for a great cup of coffee or wonderful glass of wine!
Shailynn is a mother of three and married to a handsome firefighter.

Need to calculate and track your estimated quarterly tax payments? You can have GoDaddy Online Bookkeeping automatically calculate it out, track your payments and even estimate future earnings - so you don't have to guess those pesky estimated payments anymore.